Plane Passenger Who Claims Fellow Traveler ‘Offered My Seat’ to Someone Else Sparks Outrage: He ‘Volunteered You as Tribute’

The passenger recalled the traveler’s bizarre request in a retelling of the incident on Reddit, writing that the whole situation left everyone baffled

A plane passenger who gave up his seat for another traveler is questioning everything about his decision.

In a post shared to Reddit on Sunday, March 30, a user wrote about something he called “a first for me” after his recent cross-country flight.

“Haven’t had this happen before or even heard of it happening,” he began the lengthy post, recalling how he boarded an airbus and took the seat he had booked — an aisle seat in first class.

“[A] woman comes on with someone she is clearly traveling with. She sits next to me in 4D,” the Redditor writes, recalling how the woman’s partner sat in a window seat right behind them.

The next person to board, he writes, is a man who sits down right in front of him in an aisle seat. The man then turned around and offered for the woman to sit next to her partner.

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“I’m looking at him like, ‘how are you going to swing that?'” the Redditor continues, adding that the woman next to him reacted similarly.

“[The guy in front of me] says he’ll move to the window in row 3 so I can move up to [the aisle seat] in row 3 to allow her partner to take my seat,” the post continues. “Still looking at him like he’s high, I remind him that window seat in row 3 is not his to take and that the person sitting may not want to switch.”

The man then suggests that the Reddit user take the woman’s partner’s window seat behind them, but he quickly replied to say that he paid for an aisle seat and would prefer not to move to a window because of how long the flight was.

“I tell him that I chose an aisle for a reason so I’ll be happy to take his seat in 3C and he can take 5A but I have no intention of taking a window seat,” the Redditor writes.

“Apparently. he changed his mind and didn’t want a window either, but at this point, I reminded him that he was the one who made the offer,” the post continues. “After thinking about it, he seemed a bit p—–, but also was seemingly a bit embarrassed by his lack of thinking this through that he decided to take it and I moved up one row.”

According to the post, everyone eventually switched — but the Redditor was able to stay in an aisle seat for the rest of the flight.

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“Getting off the flight, the woman and parter thanked us both for switching,” he finished the story. “I said, ‘you’re welcome’ and the guy expressed that he wished he hadn’t as he was stuck in the window seat and also pointed out that he couldn’t even keep the shade open because it was on the direct sunlight side of the plane.”

Other users were quick comment on the absurdity of the situation, with one commenter even writing that the man who suggested everyone move had essentially volunteered on his behalf.

“That is a wild thing to happen,” the comment read. “He totally went, ‘I volunteer you as tribute.'”

“The audacity of some people,” another reply stated. “Glad you insisted on the aisle!”

When it comes to seat swapping, travelers should never anticipate that other passengers might be willing to switch, according to Travel expert, writer and advisor Nicole Campoy Jackson.

“Generally speaking, don’t board a plane expecting passengers to shift for you, especially if your seat is not as comfortable as (or more than) theirs,” Jackson previously told PEOPLE. 

She also advised that it’s always best to communicate with a flight attendant if a passenger needs help settling a seat swapping or stealing situation as they have access to more information than passengers do. 

“I am always in the camp of getting a flight attendant involved for sticky in-flight situations,” she said. “Tensions run high when we’re traveling plus they would know, for example, if there was another aisle seat or another solution to this problem. They have more context than we, the passengers, do.”